Month: December 2018

The decision to take yourself off to a weight loss camp, be it one of the increasingly popular weight loss boot camps or a more gentle weight loss retreat, is something to be thought through carefully.

The main benefit of being at one of of the weight loss resorts is that you remove yourself from temptation. Only healthy food is served, exercise is programmed into the day, with many camps offering personal trainer sessions to design an exercise program that is perfect for you and your current level of fitness.

Holiday breaks taken at fitfarms can offer a chance for pampering and relaxation to be combined with time to recharge your mental, emotional and physical batteries all while receiving lifestyle advice that helps you lose weight.

A quick weight loss center may be the answer if you need to see weight loss results by a particular date. The regime will tend to be stricter and very often difficult to continue once you leave, but they do report good results in the short term.

A weight loss boot camp may be a good choice if you respond well to externally enforced discipline (i.e. you don’t mind being told what to do and when to do it).

Weight loss support groups may be your best choice if you feel there are emotional reasons for your weight gain and eating habits.

Whilst the various weight loss camps approach the problem of dieting from a slightly different angle, they do all claim to be able to kickstart your diet efforts – and these claims are believable. After all, it’s hard to cheat on a diet under an enforced residential weight loss regime. The challenge comes once you leave the camp or retreat and have to face life once again back in the real world – and that will depend on you.

By choosing the type of weight loss camp that most suits you and your way of life you are giving yourself the best chance of achieving a weight loss that endures rather than a weight loss that turns in to a weight gain as soon as you are left to your own devices.

If you have never enjoyed hard, physical exercise the regime you follow at a weight loss bootcamp is very unlikely to follow you home. Be realistic and don’t set yourself up to fail.

Weight loss resorts are not the cheap option when it comes to dieting. You owe it to yourself to get the most value from the experience by selecting a weight loss camp that will help you in a way you can continue once you leave; that will teach skills you can readily incorporate into your lifestyle by including lots of small changes to your diet and exercise regime rather than than large drastic changes.

Staying at a weight loss camp is almost guaranteed to kickstart your diet. The real question is whether the weight loss you achieve whilst there is a permanent weight loss – that is surely the real sign of success.

Walking is the best exercise to lose weight. Whilst reducing calories will help you shed those unwanted pounds, you can help them stay off by walking.

Weight loss is, arguably, easy. How many times have you lost 2, 3 or maybe 4 pounds? The difficult part is keeping that weight off and this is where walking helps.

Hippocrates said ‘Eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise.’

A couple of generations ago most people incorporated sufficient physical activity in their normal daily lives to make separate exercise unnecessary. The same cannot be said today with our sedentary lifestyle packed with labour saving devices. We have to make an effort to exercise our bodies as it is simply not happening, for most of us at least, during a normal working day.

If you have been restricting your calorie intake to lose weight, you may have lowered your metabolic rate. Your metabolism is your body’s engine and like all engines it needs fuel (food). When the fuel is in short supply (when you are on a diet) the engine slows its burn rate to conserve energy so you actually start burning fewer calories and the rate at which you lose weight slows and plateaus.

Walking for 20, 30 minutes – or an hour if you have time – each day will help to increase your metabolic rate back up to a normal level. It’s what makes this the best exercise to lose weight. This in turn means your body has to look elsewhere for fuel and this is when it will start to raid those fat stores.

The beauty of walking is that you can start without buying special clothing or equipment; you can do it wherever you are in whatever time you have available.

You can buy a treadmill or walking machine to enable you to walk indoors – weight loss equipment can be really useful in keeping you to your weight loss work out routine – provided you use it for the purpose for which it was designed and don’t leave it in the corner of your bedroom to be used as a clothes rack.

In addition to helping you maintain your weight loss walking has been shown to reduce the risk of suffering from diabetes, stroke, a number of cancers and heart disease.

If you don’t have time to go for a walk be creative and think about the opportunities you have to incorporate walking into your normal daily routine. Walking is the best exercise to lose weight and it’s free, it’s eco friendly and it’s good for you.

Walking conditions and strengthens muscles, increases fitness levels, boosts circulation and has been shown to boost those naturally occurring brain chemicals that ward of depression. A lot of weight problems can be attributed to comfort eating caused by depression and the blues. Walking helps to lift the mood thereby reducing the need to eat chocolate and other serotonin containing foods.

So you are convinced of the benefits of walking but before you pull on your walking shoes, be sensible.

Do you need to check in with your Doctor before starting an exercise program?

Always remember to gently warm up those muscles before striding out and gently stretch the muscles as you cool down after your walk.

Be safe – think about your route, let someone know which way you will be walking or find a walking buddy.

Remember walking around a mall, a zoo or a park, whilst your children play, is all walking. And walking is the best exercise to lose weight!

Always carry a bottle of water with you and take the time to keep track of your progress – this will be very motivating on those off days when you lose your walking mojo. Being able to look back and see how far you have progressed can be inspirational.

Design your own walking weight loss program to suit your current fitness levels and combined with a healthy eating plan you’ll find the weight is not only lost but it stays off too.

It is claimed to be a secret, special formula of natural fruits and essential oils containing vital nutrients and antioxidants. The drink is taken for 48 hours and promises a dramatic weight loss in that time.

If you were to drink nothing but this so called miracle diet formula for 48 hours your scales would almost certainly show a loss of weight, but what is it that has actually been lost? After all, you can lose weight by having a haircut but that doesn’t help you get into a smaller clothes size.

When talking about a crash diet and weight loss the underlying assumption is that you want to lose pounds of unwanted fat. You want to change shape but you don’t want to lose muscle and you don’t want to lose water. You need both.

The 48 hour crash diet will not help you to lose body fat. You may be lighter on the scales at the end of the 48 hour period but that is nothing more than a temporary weight loss. For most people this miracle crash diet will do nothing more than encourage the expulsion of the (approximately) 5 lbs of faecal matter everyone can have lurking in their gut at any one time.

Of course, that is pleasing and, arguably, healthy provided no damage is being done to the gut lining in the process. As soon as normal food is eaten this weight is regained in a very short time – the miracle effect is lost.

Anything that has a diuretic effect on the body (encouraging water loss) will show an apparent weight loss on the scales. It’s not only the Hollywood Miracle Crash Diet that does this but saunas and many of the ‘slimming’ wraps offered by beauty salons too. This is really a false weight loss as it doesn’t affect fat stored in the body and the weight is regained as soon as fluid levels are restored.

If you are looking for an emergency, temporary solution to shift some bulk from your abdomen this miracle crash diet solution may be something that works for you. It may be that emptying your bowels efficiently allows you to fit into the trousers or skirt you bought for that important interview or date.

Everyone who wants or needs to lose weight seeks the miracle solution. Nobody wants to go without, to cut back or to feel deprived.

The fact is excess weight is carried in the body because too much food has been ingested for the level of activity and calorie burn. There is no miracle, sadly. To lose weight the number of calories taken into the body has to be less than the number of calories the body needs. This is what real diet programs are all about.

Long term this crash diet is not a real or healthy weight loss product. Despite what the Hollywood name implies there is no miracle and there is no real weight loss. The 48 hour diet is really nothing more than a laxative. For lasting, safe and effective fat loss, you need a more balanced program or plan.

A quick search on Google reveals an extensive choice of online fat loss diet programs, which you can follow from the comfort of your own home.

The question is, are online weight loss programs effective?

The answer has to be that the success or failure of the program is dependent in large part on the individual following it and if you are looking for an online solution to your diet and weight loss problems the best starting point is to be clear about what you actually need from such services.

Are you simply seeking an online weight loss support group? Is it moral support you seek rather than food plans and calorie information?

Do you want access to some kind of fat loss diet calculator – be it for calories or points?

Would a diet tracker be useful and motivating or some other kind of diet software?

Perhaps you just want to read a fat loss diet blog for inspiration or visit a weight loss website for ideas?

Would it be helpful to have health and fitness information included in the program rather than just articles on diets and dieting?

By taking the time to explore the functionality offered by the various online diet programs you can begin to decide what functions, services and mode of delivery will be of most benefit to you and this in turn increases the chances that the program will be effective for you.

Some online weight loss programs are offered by food manufacturers (you’ll recognize some of the brand names), others are offered by supermarkets. As you will surely realise underlying these services is the opportunity to influence your buying decisions in the service providers favor. This doesn’t mean the services they offer are not worthwhile – it just means you need to be aware of the marketing motive.

There are other programs offered by the recognized fat loss diet program and weight loss companies who all now seem to offer an online option to attending weekly classes.

Think about which brands you know, like and trust. If you have faith in the company providing the solution you are more likely to stick to the program.

Another consideration when selecting an online fat loss diet program is your personal budget. You’ll find a range of options online from free to $hundreds. Some of these fees include the cost of meal replacement bars, soups and shakes which are supplied to you as part of the deal. Do you want or need these?

As with all weight loss plans, online diet programs can only be effective if they are followed and adhered to. The onus is on you to make the healthy choices. No-one can do that for you.

There is no doubt that weight loss websites can provide a range of tools, information and support to help you lose weight – only you can decide which of those will be most useful to you.

Everybody’s seeking the one simple but effective solution to weight loss and this list of fat loss diet food could be it!

There really are no secrets to losing excess weight. Simply give the body what it needs to function, in the right amounts and at the right time. If we did that every day we would be healthy and fit.

Of course, life isn’t that easy and food has come to mean more than fuel for the body – it is now linked to mental and emotional state and marketing messages mean we even associate certain foods with status. We have lost sight of what food is for – to fuel, maintain and repair the body.

So what are the foods you should be eating to get slim? Here is our recommended diet food list.

1. Lean Meat and Very Low Fat Vegetarian Products

These provide protein which is essential for the health and maintenance of the body. Only small amounts are needed but a protein food – meat, fish or a veggie alternative – should be included in every diet menu.

You will feel more satisfied and less likely to overeat, avoiding the energy highs and lows that can be experienced when you eat carbohydrates alone. At the same time you will be supporting the healthy functioning and repair of your body.

2. Oily Fish, Fish and Seafood

Again these foods are in the protein group so can be used as a substitute for meat. Oily fish in particular play a big part in a healthy diet by providing valuable Omega 3 – a polyunsaturated fat that is essential for good cardiovascular health. Choose oily fish as your fat loss diet meal at least twice a week.

Protein requires more calories to be digested and processed by the body than do carbohydrates and fats – it effectively increases the metabolic rate. This combined with its effect of making us feel fuller for longer, acting as a sort of appetite suppressant, means protein from lean meat, fish and seafood is an ally in the battle of the bulge and is why high protein diet menus have become so popular.

3. Fruit

Fruit is full of antioxidants, essential nutrients, phytonutrients, fibre and water and it is delicious. Eat whole fruits rather than juices as the body needs the fibre contained within the whole fruit to maintain good bowel health. Use generous portions of fresh fruit in your weight loss recipes.

4. Vegetables

Like fruit, vegetables are packed with nutrients and fibre. Try to incorporate the recommended 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day into your diet. It is one of the few fat loss diet recommendations that the various food agencies and medical authorities agree upon.

Ideally eat fruits and vegetables with every meal for a balanced diet. Most fruits and vegetables help to restore the body to its natural alkaline state, which in turn helps to prevent the leaching of minerals such as calcium from the body.

5. Water

It may be the final item on the list but that doesn’t make it any the less valuable. Use herbal tea or add lemon or ginger if that makes water more palatable to you. Avoid carbonated drinks, even the diet sort. Water keeps the body hydrated and helps with the regular elimination of waste products. It’s the nearest thing we have to a diet miracle but it is regularly overlooked because there is no expensive marketing campaign promoting its use.

So that’s the diet and food list that will help you get slim. No secrets, no miracles just good common sense advice. If you will take a moment to sit back and reflect, you’ll see it makes sense. Taking in too many calories – overeating – is the primary if not the sole cause of weight gain.

Just think how difficult it is to overeat if you are choosing lean chicken breast, broccoli, green beans, carrots and a large salad. How difficult is it to overeat when your choices are fresh fruit? Your stomach will be signalling you are full. Its physical capacity will be reached and you simply cannot overdo it.

Compare that to eating ice cream, chips/crisps, chocolate, sugary doughnuts and pastries. How easy is it to eat just another portion of these?

Try eating from our simple diet food list and you’ll notice a difference in health, mood and weight – the proof will be there for you to see on the bathroom scales.